THE UNITY OF IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE AS THE ...

definition, there could not be any aspects of the object that did not have a functional
relation to the telos. If there are not any features of the object that do not have the proper
functional relation to the telos that determines the object, however, then there aren’t any
objects that fail to instantiate their telos fully. There clearly are such objects. Therefore a
proper functional relation to the object’s telos cannot be the sole factor that determines
the object’s unity or constitution.
Here we come to the most central feature of the object, according to Hegel, a
feature that Hegel describes as the “contradiction” in the object, as the object’s “pure
negativity,” as the sense in which the object determines, excludes, and includes its
other. 181 The telos constitutes the pure unity of the object, the sense in which the object
is one. In light of the unity of this telos, the object, to cite phrases from the passage under
discussion, becomes “bifurcated.” The object sets itself up as an “opposition.” It
determines itself in relation to its “other.” This is the original “doubling” that leads to the
“duality” and ultimately the plurality of the object. It is in light of the telos that the
object determines what counts as itself and what counts as its other. The object takes as
itself those aspects that already accord with its telos, and it takes as its other those aspects
that impede, or at least do not accord, with its telos.
However, the object is not simply itself. It is not simply those aspects that accord
with – or are already functionally related to – the telos. The object is intimately and
181 For a different account of Hegel’s conception of the contradiction in the object, see Paul
Guyer’s “Hegel, Leibniz and the Contradiction in the Finite.” In contrast to this dissertation, Guyer places
greater emphasis on Hegel’s monism. Guyer argues that finite objects contain contradictions, though on his
interpretation of Hegel, this presents the fundamental shortcoming of finite objects. The absolute, on
Guyer’s reading, reconciles these contradictions, and thus the absolute is the only true entity.
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